I rolled out of the bed with a groan. Nine attempts, and the best I could manage was eight minutes. This isn’t looking great for us. It’s nice to see at least something good come out of this training.

Shadow Power Manifestation level up: Level 5.

Shadow Power Manifestation level up: Level 6.

Shadow Power Shaping level up: Level 5.

Shadow Power Shaping level up: Level 6.

Killa picked me up before my feet touched the ground. “Easy. Are you all right? What did you do to your legs and chest? I can see if there’s the same metal as your arms now on your legs, and your chest feels like there’s something under the skin.”

I shifted myself out of her arms and stood up on my own. “Physically, I’m fine. Otherwise, I’m starting to question if this was the right thing—attacking the fort, that is.”

I pointed to my legs. “As for my changes, the metal skin on my legs is new. I’ve upgraded the muscles and tendons in my arms and legs as well. The plates in my chest were from before, but I’ve replaced all the muscles in my torso so as not to throw off my balance.

“Faster?”

I nodded. “Faster.”

Shadara walked into the room. “Is everything working?”

I arched an eyebrow. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it?”

She shrugged. “It’s just that I remember the first time you upgraded your leg muscles. You were less than graceful.”

“Oh, that.” I blushed and turned my head. “No, I’ve spent some time getting used to them already. It was much easier this time around.”

The panther woman nodded. “You decided to go with her idea anyway. I see.”

I bit my lip. “Shadara, don’t do that, please.” I ran up and grabbed her hand. “It wasn’t because Killa was the one who suggested that I get more augments. Please don’t make this about taking sides. I don’t want you two to be butting heads over this.”

Killa crossed her arms as she leaned against the wall. “It’s all her decision. Who are we to tell her what to do? She’s her own person.”

Shadara’s tail drooped as she lowered her head. “We were being pretty stupid, weren’t we? You asked for options, and we gave them. Our egos just got the better of us.”

I smirked. “See? You two can be friends. And speaking of what you have in common…” I waved to Killa. “Chad thought she was my girlfriend too.”

Killa’s body rippled. “Yeah. The little creep tried even to ask for sex once I told him I saw Rina more as a sister.”

Shadara chuckled. “Did he? Why does he keep thinking every girl with Rina is her girlfriend?”

I pursed my lips. “Beats me. And frankly, it’s kind of rude.” I shrugged my shoulders. “But Killa’s answer sort of inspired me. Do you remember when we talked about him thinking we were dating?”

She nodded slowly. “I do. Does that mean you have an answer?”

I gave an exaggerated nod. “Yes. I don’t know what romantic love feels like, but I feel for you like I feel for Killa. If I’m a sister to her, then maybe we can all be sisters to each other.” I turned to Killa. “You okay with that?”

Killa grinned. “It’ll take some time to get to that point with her.” She pointed to Shadara. “But I’ll put in the effort if she does.”

I turned back to Shadara. She tapped her chin with a finger. “Blood-bound sisters? Hmm.” Her eyes sparkled as she nodded. “That feels fitting. Even if one of us doesn’t actually have blood.”

She sliced her palm with a claw and held it out to us. “Sisters?”

I held up a hand. “One, I can’t make a simple cut. Two, if my blood does get into you, you’ll die horribly and painfully.”

Killa nodded. “It’s not pretty. I was there. And if I were to put a piece of myself directly into your bloodstream, it’d likely clog an artery, causing a heart attack, blood clot, or stroke.”

Shadara dropped her hand. “Well, thanks for bursting my bubble.” She sighed. “I guess the ceremony isn’t all that important. Is there anything from your worlds we could do? It feels like we should do something.”

I shrugged. “There were a few things from other cultures in my world. Unfortunately, I never took the time to learn them enough to say more than that they existed.”

Killa pushed off the wall. “We could still do your idea, Shadara. We’ll just need to adjust it slightly.” She pulled out six mana potions. She handed them to me. “Do you mind? My battery is already full.”

I popped them open and downed them, pushing all the mana into my mana battery. My HUD read thirteen hundred and thirty percent capacity. Is there a maximum to what my battery can hold? I know it holds much more than Killa’s.

Yes, but the amount grows as you grow in levels. For now, keep it under five thousand percent for safety reasons.

Noted.

I held the bottles out for Killa to take. She took four and handed two to Shadara. “Fill the vials with some of your blood, and we’ll share a vial with each other so that we always carry a bit of each other at all times. It keeps the spirit without any of the horrible deaths. It doesn’t have to be much.”

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Killa filled two vials with half a pinky finger each. Shadara poured blood from her palm into them, filling them halfway each. I stared at the two vials. Their crystal structure clinked against the black metal of my hands.

Will my blood always have active nanites? And how much is lethal?

Yes, and the amount of blood required depends heavily on the infected’s total size. It takes very little to be lethal to humaniods. The nanites will go into hibernation and reactivate once they come into contact with another living organism.

What does that mean with all the other times I’ve bled? If someone comes into contact with it, could they die?

They could if it got into their bodies. If it’s ingested, the acidity of most monsters’ saliva and stomach acid will destroy the nanites.

Acid is dangerous to me and you? What happened when that spider dissolved my entire abdomen?

Thirty percent of your total nanites were destroyed before we could neutralize it. You still possess more than sufficient quantities, even if we are incapable of self-replication at this time.

And you never told me? Let me guess; I didn’t ask.

You didn’t. Also, your sense of self-preservation doesn’t require our instruction to avoid partial or complete submersion in dangerous substances such as lava and acid.

I wanted to roll my eyes. Lava—seriously? I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. We’re getting off track. So my blood will always be dangerous. Understood. What’s the best option for getting myself to bleed to fill the vials?

Your arm blade can pierce your hand if you apply sufficient force.

I placed the bottles on the nearest table and lined up my arm to stab into my palm. My muscles snapped faster than a blink of an eye. It was painful, but I clenched my teeth as I let the blood drip down the blade and into the vials. I filled each of them halfway.

I pulled the blade out of my hand and watched the wound heal in seconds. After sealing both vials with the corks, I handed one to each of my new sisters. “Be careful with these. They can still kill you if you aren’t careful.”

They nodded as they placed them in their respective pockets. Shadara and Killa put their two vials in their waist pockets. I put the two vials I received from them in the inside pockets of my jacket.

I grabbed their shoulders. “Let’s reach the top together. No matter what happens, we stick together.”

Shadara nodded. “And our first step, surviving the night. They were here earlier, asking if we were ready. I told them we’d be headed out the moment you were up. So, are we doing this now?”

Killa waved towards the door. “We’ll be fine. Like you said, we just need to stick together.”

With that, we headed out. Yiff met us outside. It was very dark out. The moon couldn’t pierce through the heavily overcast sky. It wasn’t long until we were guided to the gate, where Sergent Lorrean and Commander Xantoxu were waiting with roughly seventy other soldiers.

“Are your preparations complete?” Xantoxu asked. “It’s dark out, even for a beastman. Will you even be able to see?”

I motioned to Killa. “If we need it, we can illuminate the dark. And I can see in darker than this even.”

“The darkness will also help reduce the effectiveness of their ranged attacks,” Shadara added.

The commander cleared his throat. “Yes, well, let’s hope this night raid works. Your pardon and lives are at stake.”

He motioned to a group of avian beastmen. “We have scouts flying above already. Once you have sufficiently drawn their attention inside the walls, they will inform us. We will begin working our way around, starting with the walls and working our way inward.”

I didn’t like how the wolf sergeant was eyeing us. Her body was ridged, except she kept clenching and unclenching one hand.

She marched up to us. “Let’s go, ladies. I’m going to make sure you go to where you belong in the first place.”

So we headed towards the end of the zone with our itchy chaperone. I half-expected her to attack us before we left the zone. She didn’t, and neither did the three soldiers that followed her.

If she had attacked us, it might have settled the butterflies in my stomach. It seemed they were honest and willing to work with us, but I was getting a bad feeling about the whole situation. We reached the end, and I concentrated on making sure the Soul Nexus took us to Gary.

As the surrounding environment shifted after flashing white for the briefest of moments, panic washed over me. The usual wooden fort we anticipated to greet us was nowhere in sight. Instead, a massive stone castle loomed over us, complete with a sickly green ambient light radiating from within.

I stood, baffled at the sight. Before I could compose myself, turn, and correct our location, Lorrean and her minions drew their weapons.

“I knew you were lying.” The beastwoman sergeant tightened her grip on her two-handed sword. “You thought since we caught on to you, you could escape? Well, you won’t get away with this. Tanner, go!”

I threw my hands in the air. “Wait! We’ve never been here. I don’t know what happened.”

Lorrean swung her sword at me. She was faster than I gave her credit for. Despite that, it wasn’t faster than me as I leaned back and dodged it.

Killa threw her arms out, and yellow tentacles wrapped around Lorrean and the two other soldiers that stayed with her. The third was winking out of the zone.

“We don’t have the choice now,” Killa said. “If we want to live, we need to leave this floor.”

Lorrean burst out of the tentacles. “If you think I’m about to let you get away with this treachery, you’re wrong.”

She swung her sword at me again.

I stepped back out of her reach again. “We aren’t your enemies. Will you just see that?”

Shadara pulled her bow out. “It doesn’t look like she’s going to listen to reason.”

As the words left her lips, all of Killa’s tentacles exploded into a shower of sparks. Yiff charged Shadara while a squirrel beastman threw rays of green magic at Killa.

Lorrean kept swinging her sword relentlessly, yet she was never out of control. She was too slow for her to even come close to hitting me.

We need to do something. But they don’t deserve to die. I don’t like her, but I can’t bring myself to kill her.

“Don’t kill them!” I shouted. “Just keep them from being able to follow us.”

Lorrean dropped her sword in a diagonal cut. After it passed by me, I burst to her side. Snapping my leg tendons and muscles as hard as I could, my foot drilled into the side of her knee.

The wolf woman’s knee bent at an unnatural angle as she collapsed with a sharp shriek. All control left her form as she swung her sword wildly. I extended my arm blade and struck the bottom of her blade, lifting it up and over me, before I delivered a roundhouse kick to her face with the sole of my foot.

Her body fell flat on the ground. With no message of shards or stats, I knew she was unconscious. Good.

I turned to see Killa wrapping her opponent in a gray tentacle that also stuffed itself in the squirrel beastman’s mouth. As it finished wrapping around him, it turned into a stone statue, holding him trapped. Shadara pushed her staff into Yiff’s throat while she pinned him to the ground.

She growled until, eventually, his body went limp. The moment she let up, the ground started shaking.

I waved the two towards me. “Come on. We need to go now.”

But as I took my first step, a massive bone creature burst from the ground in front of me. I tumbled backwards until Shadara caught me.

In front of us was a colossal skeletal worm with a giant shark skull attached to a spine that used its thousands of rib bones as legs.

“It looks like we have had a bit of a squabble at our front door. It’s no wonder the living are falling apart.”

Behind us, walking out of a black portal, was a heavily armored skeletal knight with black bones.

It’s a death knight.